U.S. President Donald Trump declassified intelligence on Thursday (July 16) that he said showed Chinese interference in U.S. elections, reviving his long-running attacks on election security despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing altered the 2020 vote which he lost.

The 25-minute address underscored Trump's effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of November's midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their congressional majorities and face the possibility of losing control of one or both chambers.

The president said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed China had illicitly acquired 220 million U.S. voter files, including names, addresses and other data used to register to vote. He asserted that members of the U.S. intelligence community deliberately suppressed information about the extent of China's activities.

His allegations contradict an unclassified 2021 U.S. intelligence community assessment that found no indications any foreign actor attempted to alter or succeeded in altering "any technical aspect" of the 2020 presidential election vote, including voter registrations, ballots, tabulations or results.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

1. U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP STANDING BEHIND LECTERN

2. WHITE FLASH

3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed because no country could be great without fair and honest elections. You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness. And that's very simple. No trust, no greatness.”

4. WHITE FLASH

5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard. Tonight, I'm announcing the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence, revealing shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you, the American people, our beautiful, our great American people.”

6. WHITE FLASH

7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“The documents cover five major areas of concern. First, they show that over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China signed a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project. Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the deep state, very, very famous group of people, many cases, in our intelligence agency work to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China's sinister election meddling.”

8. WHITE FLASH

9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“This strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders, to turn against the president of the United States of America. The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president, and paid them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him, as many as they could, and they didn't care what they said. The Chinese government wanted (the) U.S. president to lose the next election, and the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charge them billions and billions of dollars worth of tariffs and built the strongest military anywhere in the world. We have the strongest military anywhere in the world.”

10. WHITE FLASH

11. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“Today, I'm asking the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden, to fire those involved in the cover up, and to file criminal charges, if appropriate, against these people. Yet concealing China's meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot counting systems. Dishonest, almost all.”

12. WHITE FLASH

13. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“We should be united, not divided. In light of the brand new and irrefutable information I have revealed tonight, my administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People's Republic of China and many others. We will be working closely to mitigate any harm, and we're taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again.”

14. WHITE FLASH

15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“But most importantly, addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the Save America Act. How easy is that to do? Unless you want to cheat. The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way. This landmark bill requires that all voters must show photo voter ID. How simple is that?”

16. WHITE FLASH

17. TRUMP ENDING ADDRESS TO THE NATION

INTERNET (RELEASED JULY 16, 2026) (WHITE HOUSE HANDOUT - Access all) (MUTE)

18. VARIOUS SCREENSHOTS OF DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE